The London Foodie Goes To Bali - The South Coast, Seminyak

From Lovina Beach on the north coast (see review here) it was a dramatic 3 hour drive south, crossing the entire island, to reach Seminyak - notable both for the beauty of the route, passing through immense vistas of terraced paddy fields, lakes, streams and volcanoes, and also the most dramatic thunderstorms and torrential rain typical of the Balinese monsoon season. A highlight though was stopping at various roadside Warungs (Balinese cafes) for a fix of succulent Babi Guling (roast suckling pig), the local delicacy eaten all over the island.

Tropical Thunderstorms en Route to Seminyak

A few kilometres from the capital Denpasar, the south coast of Bali has a cluster of villages which are home to a large expat community as well as the starting or ending point for the bulk of tourists who visit the island. From Kuta, the most southerly near the airport, through Legian, to Seminyak and Petitenget, the atmosphere becomes progressively more upmarket.

Many Boutiques on Seminyak's High Streets

Kuta is a surfers' hangout, tattoo parlour and Aussie bar town, and a place popular with backpackers and gap-year students. Legian is a little more sedate, and popular with families looking for affordable accommodation near the beach.

The next town north of Legian, Seminyak is  more elegant (and expensive) with mostly luxury accommodation and fashionable , relatively costly restaurants and bars. The atmosphere is more sophisticated and laid-back, and the beach in particular is quieter during the day. Seminyak is also the shopping capital of Bali with many well known labels on the high street including Camper shoes and Paul Smith among local shops.
  

Petitenget is at the poshest end of this stretch of coastal villages, and hosts some of the best restaurants, art dealers, cafes as well as being the greenest and most residential area with fine villas and apartments.

There is certainly a downside to this development and the whole district has become very congested. However, for its range of luxury hotels and excellent restaurants, tasteful galleries, antique shops and spas, there is nothing to rival Seminyak and Petitenget in Bali.

Where to Stay 

Amana Villas 

With no signs indicating their presence, either on the main roads in the town, or indeed outside their reception, Amana Villas are clearly for those in the know. From the centre of Seminyak's main road, it is via a tiny narrow street that one approaches its almost hidden, unassuming entrance. But passing through the lobby, one finds a collection of fifteen stunning villas nestling among bamboo topiary. A brand new hotel, the design is minimalist, ultra-modern and chic.

Each villa is completely self- contained, with its own private entrance, swimming pool and garden. Our villa was a duplex, with an upstairs living and kitchen area (where breakfast was served), downstairs bedroom and bathroom, and private infinity plunge pool whose water cascaded down a waterfall sculpture at the foot of the double bed. It was a  very impressive setting and design, all dark wood and natural stone, with plenty of natural light and space.

The hotel offers a highly individual butler service, for instance as beds were turned down each evening, lighted tea-candles might be placed in the bathroom with guests names printed inside the glass, or personalised cakes, chocolate coated fruit, or roses left on the bed - each evening's surprise was something different.

I was very impressed by the level of service, with some staff going well beyond the call of duty to help us - the manager Arie Santoso spent many hours one evening helping us purchase last minute flights to Lombok. The hotel also offers complimentary access to Bali's premier member's only country club, Canggu Club.

Each morning, breakfast is served in the villa by the butler at a pre-arranged time. There was a good choice of Indonesian and western cooked dishes, as well as freshly cut fruit, tea, coffee, cereals, yoghurt and pastries. It was a hearty meal enjoyed to the sound of our own private waterfall.

Amana Villas is well located at the junction of Jalan Kaya Ayu ( also known as Jalan Oberoi or Jalan Laksmana ), which has most of the town's restaurants, and  Jalan Seminyak, where the antique, art and furniture shops are. Yet, on the 100 metre walk to Jalan Kaya Ayu, there are rice paddies, and the villas themselves are remarkably tranquil, reflecting this distance from the high street. The sky at night is pitch black - great for star gazing during a late night plunge in the pool.

There are very few hotels which I feel have got it so right - beautiful, sophisticated and private. When in Seminyak, I can't think of anywhere else I would rather stay. Very highly recommended.

Where to Eat

Mamasan Restaurant

A ten minute walk from Amana Villas is Mamasan, a fashionable Australian-owned restaurant with cool decor and purportedly some of the best food in Bali. Converted from a large old warehouse, Mamasan occupies two floors - a large restaurant on the ground floor and a busy cocktail bar and lounge on the first. A beautiful and stylish restaurant, it has high ceilings, some impressive British colonial-style furniture and other vintage pieces and paintings.

Mamasan is the "trendy" option in Seminyak with European prices to match. We enjoyed the food at this restaurant but found the nightclub style music and feel of the place a bit discouraging. There is a dress code and diners are expected to dress smartly. Photography is not permitted inside the restaurant, and after pleading with our waitress, the manager, and then the owner, we were allowed a couple of sneaky pics. 

The menu features dishes from most South-East Asian countries, particularly  Thailand and Vietnam, but also has some Chinese and Indonesian options. We started with a refreshing Thai salad of crispy salmon skin and green mango served with sweet fish sauce at £7.50. This was a delicious, zingy and well made salad.

The Sichuanese fried cumin lamb at £7 was also good although not as "cuminy" as I tasted in other Chinese restaurants, and the portion was a tad ungenerous.

The crispy confit pork hock on the bone served with a Nam Pla Prik sauce at £9 was a triumph. Crispy on the outside but succulent and very soft inside, I just wished I had a bigger stomach to order another portion there and then. Apologies for the dodgy image quality, the pictures were taken quickly and in poor light.

The wine list is one the most expensive we saw in Bali with entry, basic level wines at around £40, so we opted for jasmine tea at £2.50 per person (Michelin-starred Hakkasan prices). Annoyingly, our tea was served in two separate Western tea pots and cups which took up nearly our entire table, and unsurprisingly, they were not refilled.

Chandi Restaurant 

Again just a ten minute walk from the Amana Villas, Chandi is another lovely restaurant on Seminyak's main street. An interesting blend of culinary cultures and local know how reflects the influences of the two head chefs, husband and wife Agung Nugroho and Kirsten Weymar,  who opened the restaurant in 2008. This is a very elegant and relatively expensive restaurant with both indoor and outdoor dining areas, white table linen, candles and very fine service.

We kicked off with a sizzling platter of various fish and shellfish sate skewers at £14 which included butterfish (highly fatty and deliciously rich white fish), black sea bass, scallops, lobster, whole soft shell crab, squid, long beans and lotus root. The fish, including the squid (surprisingly), were perfectly cooked and soft, well seasoned and with a delicious char-grilled flavour imparted by the hot grill.

One of the restaurant's specialties is their "Duck Betutu Tasting" at £14 per person which we ordered. The tasting menu included the Balinese 16-spiced marinated crispy duck, sate lilit on sugar cane (blend of duck meat and spices), salty duck egg, long bean, soy sprout and grated coconut salad and 3 types of Sambal sauces.

The best dish of the evening however was the roasted pork belly at £9 served with Chinese broccoli, pink grapefruit and chives. The Balinese have a great fondness for pork with Babi Guling (roasted suckling pig) being one of their most famous dishes. Chandi's pork belly was extraordinary, the crackling was fine and very crisp, the meat meltingly tender and flavoursome. This is a dish not to be missed at Chandi.

Sarong Restaurant 

One of the most elegant restaurants in Petitenget, Sarong was highly recommended to us by many throughout Bali. Open since 2008, founding chef Will Meyrick's menu presents dishes he sought out from street-food vendors around Asia. The restaurant has gained a number of international awards, and it was packed on the evening we were there.

We started with a perfectly cooked, crispy and well seasoned plate of salt and pepper squid at £5 followed by an exquisite crispy pork belly with baby mandarin and ginger with a black vinegar caramel at £7.50. The pork belly was out of this world (probably double or triple cooked) and the portion was also rather generous, this was by far the best dish of the evening.

The Eastern Balinese duck salad with young fern tip, lemongrass and kaffir lime at £5 was the vegetable accompaniment for our curry main. It was flavoursome and with a lovely texture but unfortunately a tad salty.

Sarong's Penang curry with wagyu beef at £10 was good but again slightly too salty. The curry sauce had been over-reduced and the flavours were too intense and overpowering. The  stir-fried rice with egg, asparagus, shiitake mushrooms and sweetcorn at £3.50 was however delicious and well made.

For pudding, Dr G and I shared an Asian dessert of young coconut jelly, crushed ice tapioca, and black agar agar at £3. Beautifully presented and very refreshing, I was very impressed by the combination of flavours and textures in this dessert.

What to Do 

Shopping

Seminyak is the shopping capital of Bali. Suria and Folk Art Gallery on Jalan Oberoi have fine collections of Balinese and Indonesian crafts on sale, and are well worth a browse. We bought a few pieces for our living room there.

Chillaxing

There are many spas in this area, with varying degrees of comfort and professionalism. After some research, we thought Melasti Spa offered a good balance of skill, privacy and cost. We had the Balinese massage (a mixture of acupressure and oil massage) for 60 minutes, at a cost of £10 per person, and left feeling refreshed and relaxed.

Cooking

Dean’s Bali Cooking School is run by renowned chef Dean James, and offers a number of courses that can help visitors learn more about Balinese cuisine. As well as instruction on how to cook, the participants can get the opportunity to visit a local market and learn about ingredients.

Swimming or Surfing 

The beaches that run along the south side of Seminyak/Legian/Kuta are sandy, and very well known for their surfing. They are also good for a swim if you don't mind being clobbered by metre-high waves every so often.

And it is Selamat Tinggal (Goodbye) Bali!

Seminyak was the last place we visited in Bali before flying out to Lombok and then Singarpore and London. I fell in love with this Indonesian island, its people, their way of life and above all their food! The video below which I found on YouTube captures how I see Bali, it is definitely worth a watch!

If you enjoyed this post, you might like to read my other write-ups on Bali.

The London Foodie Goes to Bali - Ubud (Part I)
The London Foodie Goes to Bali - Ubud (Part II)
The London Foodie Goes to Bali - Amed
The London Foodie Goes to Bali - Lovina

Travel Essentials

Amana Villas
Jalan Wirasaba No.5
Off Jalan Kayu Aya [ also known as Jalan Oberoi or Jalan Laksmana ]
Seminyak
80361 Bali
Indonesia
E-mail: info@amanavillas.com
www.amanavillas.com

Room internet rates for the 'waterfall villa' featured are from £236 per night inclusive of breakfast. 

Mamasan Restaurant 
Jalan Raya Kerobokan 135, Kerobokan, Bali 80361, Indonesia
Tel: 0361730436
www.mamasanbali.com

Chandi Restaurant
Jalan Laksmana 72
Seminyak, Bali 80361
Indonesia 
E-mail:  info@chandibali.com 
www.chandibali.com

Sarong Restaurant 
Jalan Raya Petitenget No, 19 x
Kerobokan, Bali 80361
Indonesia 
E-mail: info@sarongbali.com
www.sarongbali.com

Melasti @ Spa
Jalan Padma Utara 
Legian
E-mail: desakayu@legianmelastispa.com
www.legianmelastispa.com

Dean’s Bali Cooking School
Warung Ares, Seminyak Square
Booking Center: +62 (0)812 4655 2549
E-mail dean@deanfisherbali.com
www.deanfisherbali.com/index.html

The London Foodie Goes to Bali - Lovina

Having enjoyed the cultural hub of Ubud (reviewed here and here) and then relaxed and dived for a short while in Amed (reviewed here), we drove for around 3 hours north-west along the coast road to reach the northern town of Lovina.

Lovina is a relatively new name coined in the 1950s by the last Raja of Buleleng with an eye to future tourism-based development. It started with a small lodge built on his own land, named Lovina. Today, Lovina (pronounced 'Lobina', there being no 'v' in the Indonesian language, Bahasa) is used as the name for seven villages, which merge into each other along a seven mile stretch of the main road running along the north coast to the west of Singaraja: Temukus, Kalibukbuk, Anturan, Pemaron, Tukad Mungga, Banyualit and Kaliasem.

Kalibukuk is the main hub of this area and makes up the town centre. The whole stretch of coast here is fringed by quite narrow black sand beaches which are generally safe for swimming. The waters of Bali's north coast, in contrast to the crashing surf of the south, are relatively calm with a dream-like quality at sunset.

The Most Beautiful Sunsets of Bali at Lovina Beach

Diving, snorkelling and dolphin watching are the main activities, but perhaps above all else, this is an area in which to relax and take in a very slow, traditional pace of life. I am told it can get a little crowded in July and August, but outside that peak season, this is a quiet part of the island.

Where to Stay

The Damai

We stayed at The Damai. A stunning hotel, The Damai has 14 villas, varying in size from the intimate to the palatial, each set in a lush tropical garden and decorated with stylish furniture, fabrics and artefacts from Bali. The Damai is owned by a Danish hotelier who is, I am sure, behind the hotel's elegantly refined design.

Ours was a deluxe villa, with a small veranda surrounded by a fragrant herb garden. The rooms had  fine hardwood furniture and local antiques, creating a simple, elegant tropical style but also including all mod cons such as TV, DVD and Wi-Fi. The large open air bathroom had a stone jacuzzi filled with water from a local stream, and an outside shower in a private walled garden brimming with lush greenery.

The grounds were extensive, and tastefully lit in the evenings.  There were several different gardens and a spa, as well as water tanks to keep live crayfish.  Near the reception area and bar, the swimming pool overlooked the hillside leading down to the beach far below.
  

We also had a look at the magnificent Umah Raja Villa, the estate's largest at 310 sq metres, with  a master bedroom and 2 junior bedrooms, all connecting to their own en suite bathroom. The living room with dining area was luxuriously decorated with antiques from Bali, Java and other parts of Indonesia, as well as having fine locally crafted furniture. Outside, there was a large veranda, balcony, covered pavilion and two private swimming pools.

Table for Two Please!

The hotel is set into a hillside overlooking Lovina, and it is approximately a two mile journey to the beach area with its bars and restaurants. This was not a problem for us as we had a hire car, but otherwise any trip into town would require a taxi (not a big expense in Bali, where most short trips cost £1).

We enjoyed the tranquillity and beauty of the hotel's grounds, and mainly lounged around by the large swimming pool, reading, enjoying a few cocktails at the bar and relaxing. The Damai is one of the most elegant hotels we experienced in Bali, and I would thoroughly recommend it to anyone visiting Lovina.

Where to Eat

Le Jaenzan

We ate at this very good restaurant on the coast road in Kalibukbuk. We were met by the head chef and owner Ketut Tangkas Adnyana as we entered the restaurant. He trained in many restaurants (including at The Damai), as well as spending several years working in cruise liner restaurants in the USA, before setting up his own business in 2010.

After an amuse bouche, we had pan fried scallops with tomato tamarillo chutney, and dill butter sauce (£3.30), and homemade pork sausages - served with green salad, tomato, fried peanuts and honey/oyster dressing (£3) which were both equally delicious. The presentation of the dishes was also noteworthy, like nothing I had seen in Bali thus far.

The Tuna Carpaccio - yellow fin tuna, beetroot mayo, green salad and pickled vegetables (£3) was next, the fish was perfectly seared and then encrusted in green salsa, it was a refreshing and well made dish.

For main course, we had a baby fillet of red snapper served on a bed of roasted aubergine, garlic bread and a herby honey sauce (£5.30). Dr G decided to go for the pork ribs marinated in miso, grilled and served with yellow rice, aubergine, vegetables and pork jus (£5.30).

The sea lobster flambéed in Pernod with grilled tomatoes, new potatoes, salad and lobster sauce (£8.70) was also magnificent, and a real steal at that price tag!

This was an excellent meal, made even more special by the attention and care that the owner showed us by coming to chat to us and explain each dish in detail. Ketut, the owner, is obviously a very passionate and skilled chef and I hope to return one day.

The Damai Restaurant

The award-winning restaurant at The Damai is said to be Lovina's best restaurant, and indeed one of the best in Bali. It serves organic vegetables and meats from its own small farm, together with a fresh catch from the sea and imported delicacies.

Breakfast was very good, with Indonesian, Continental, American and Japanese options.  We sampled all four during our two days, and all were very good although the American was the weakest, Japanese (mahi-mahi smoked in green tea and smoked, miso soup, omelette roll, fish cake and steamed rice ) and Indonesian  (nasi goreng or mie goreng and tropical fruits) the best.   There was a chef who would prepare and cut whichever tropical fruit guests selected and present them very temptingly - dragon fruit, star fruit, snake fruit and guava among others.

Japanese Breakfast at The Damai

We also had dinner at The Damai one evening. There are several set and à la carte menus, but we opted for the 3 course Balinese set menu (£25 per person) which was excellent.  This started with Sate Burung Dara - sweet basil marinated pigeon grilled on a lemongrass stick, with young fern tips and long bean salad, and fresh lime.
  

We then slipped in a dish from the  à la carte menu - young jackfruit steak, peppered and pan-fried, served with roast beetroot, red wine braised shallots, and pommes allumette (£10).
  

The main course was Kare Be Siap - a fragrant coconut curry with chicken, oriental squash and pak choy served with organic Balinese rice and fried garlic.

Dessert was a spectacular Dadar Gulung - thin pancakes rolled around coconut and palm sugar, coconut ice cream, vanilla tuille, snake fruit salad and lemon grass syrup.

Singaraja Street Food Market

East of Lovina Beach, Singaraja is home to a night food market, renowned in the area for its sates and other Balinese muslim favourites.

We sampled a few savoury local dishes including goat soup, stuffed roti canai and a selection of sates.

They were all quite delicious particularly the chicken sate with a creamy peanut sauce which cost us only a few pennies!

It is a very simple market, amenities are minimal but it is a good opportunity to eat with and like the locals.

What to Do

Visit the Bedugul Region

Set in the mountains around 90 minutes' drive inland from Lovina, this is a very scenic area to visit, with terraced rice paddies, lakes, waterfalls and temples all worth a look. We visited Munduk to have a look at one of its several waterfalls. It is also possible to arrange guided treks to many of the sites through the Puri Lumbung Cottages in Munduk. A few miles further south, there are two large lakes, Tamblingan and Buyan, which are worth a look.

Lovina is known all over Bali for its early morning dolphin watching boat trips.  There are many in the town centre who will offer to take visitors on such trips.  It seemed, from various sources, to be pot luck whether this resulted in a trip of a lifetime among a school of friendly dolphins, or the reckless pursuit of a possible sighting in the distance, in which a series of boats chase each other rather than dolphins.  We decided to give it a miss.

Travel Essentials

The Damai
Jalan Damai, Kayuputihlovina
Bali
E mail: info@damai.com
www.damai.com

Le Jaenzan
Jalan Serirt Lovina, Kalibukbuk, Bali, Indonesia
E mail: info@restaurant-lejaenzan-lovina-bali.com
www.restaurant-lejaenzan-lovina-bali.com

Puri Lumbung Cottages
Munduk Village 81152
North Bali
E-mail : info@purilumbung.com
www.purilumbung.com